


Kitten's Claws

by b_cre8iv321



Category: Young Justice (Cartoon), Young Justice - All Media Types
Genre: Action, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, Gen, How Do I Tag, Made For Each Other, Multi, Slow Burn, So is OC, both little shits, just don't like each other, not really enemies, robin is a little shit
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-10
Updated: 2017-02-08
Packaged: 2018-09-16 17:03:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9281432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/b_cre8iv321/pseuds/b_cre8iv321
Summary: Originally posted on FFNFollow Rachel O'Connor as she grows from a young orphan to a cat burglar to a part of a group of teenagers and youngsters with some special abilities. As she grows into a young woman, will the world be able to handle Kitten's claws?





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> So this is my first time posting on AO3. This story can be found on Fanfiction Net under the same title. My Username there is RubyFlash321, if that makes finding it easier for you guys. Hope you enjoy the story.
> 
> Disclaimer: I do not own Young Justice or its characters. The show and its characters are property of DC Comics and Warner Brothers Entertainment. I only own my character, Rachel O’Connor, her story, and any other original characters I may write into the story. Any resemblance these characters make to anyone, real or otherwise, is purely coincidental.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is my first time posting on AO3. This story can be found on Fanfiction Net under the same title. My Username there is RubyFlash321, if that makes finding it easier for you guys. Hope you enjoy the story.
> 
> Disclaimer: I do not own Young Justice or its characters. The show and its characters are property of DC Comics and Warner Brothers Entertainment. I only own my character, Rachel O’Connor, her story, and any other original characters I may write into the story. Any resemblance these characters make to anyone, real or otherwise, is purely coincidental.

The night was dark, and the usual sirens of the Gotham City Police Department could be heard from miles away. Parents closed their blinds in a feeble attempt to shield their children from the horrors of the night, but it was no use. They would grow into it anyway. Tonight was different, but not by much. On the far side of town, a jewelry store was burning as the thieves fled into the night.

“Come on, Kitten, keep up,” the older of the two chided. If you were fortunate, or perhaps unfortunate enough, you could sometimes catch a glimpse of her black-clad silhouette against the Gotham skyline as she fled the scene of her latest conquest. The younger of the two seemed to be having a hard time keeping up, but that was far from the truth.

“Oh I can keep up just fine, and you know it!” she laughed back. Her silhouette was a little easier to catch, but hard to distinguish, as her form seems to bend and fold itself into different shapes at every blink.

“I know. You’re just hoping the big, bad Bat will catch up so you can flirt with your little boyfriend.”

“Who? Birdbrain? God, as if. If that ever happened, the others would kill him, and then me!"

“Oh shut up and run. We need to pawn this off by tomorrow afternoon if we wanna make rent this month.”

“Fine.” And with that, the theatrics stopped, and the most anyone could see were two women running across the rooftops.

Selina Kyle and her younger partner in crime Rachel O’Connor made rent that month with an excess of $1500.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I made some small edits to the prologue and the summary and stuff so as not to give everything away immediately and foreshadow some other stuff.
> 
> https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7531574/1/Kitten-s-Claws
> 
> url for the story on FFN


	2. Beginnings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As we learn about the story of Catwoman's protégé, we start with how they first met.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don’t own Young Justice or any of its characters or DC Comics and their characters. I only own my character, Rachel. Any resemblance my character makes to anyone, real or not, is purely coincidental.

11 years earlier…

“I never thought I’d be back here again.” A 23-year-old Selina Kyle stood in front of Sprang Hall Juvenile Detention Center, where she had lived in misery for a period of time after the deaths of her parents. “Just as ugly as I remember it…”

With her astonishing acrobatic and athletic prowess, Selina quickly scaled the side of the building up to the roof, taking advantage of the skylight to look inside. “Just like I remember,” she repeated as she spied on the dark and dingy interior. She dropped into one of the dimly-lit hallways through an open skylight. Creeping along the walls, avoiding the patrolling “caretakers,” as they live to call themselves, she made her way to the main office of the building. A simple picking of the lock, and she was inside.

The office was a bland little room, like the rest of the building, with a desk in the corner with two seats in front of it, a bookshelf to give the appearance of being well-read, and a filing cabinet in the far corner. Selina made her way over to the filing cabinet and found it unlocked. She opened the drawers and started rifling through some of the folder until she came to one marked “Kyle, Selina.” She grabbed the file, shut the cabinet and turned to walk out, only to be greeted with the sight of a young girl standing in the doorway. Had she been following Selina the whole time?

“Beat it, kid,” she whispered harshly. When the girl showed no sign of moving, Selina started towards the door with the intent to merely shove the girl out of the way.

“One more step and I scream. I may get in trouble for being out of bed, but you’ll get arrested, unless you tell me who you are and why you’re here,” the girl said quickly and quietly. Selina froze.

“Fine,” she sighed. “Ever wonder why the windows here have bars on them?” The girl shrugged. “That’s because of me. My name is Selina. I used to live here. I escaped. They barred the windows. I needed my file. Never got around to getting it until now. Now scram.”

The girl silently nodded. She thought for a moment. “Can I leave with you?”

Selina furrowed her brows. “How old are you, kid?”

“I’m 8. And my name’s Rachel.”

“That’s nice. And no way. You’d only slow me down and get us caught.”

“I managed to follow you down here without getting caught.”

“And where would you go once we…well…IF we got out of here?”

Rachel shrugged. “I could stay with you.”

Selina sighed. “Look, kid…Rach…I can’t take care of you. I’m sorry, sweetheart.” She knelt to look Rachel in the eye. “I promise, though, that I will come back for you, and I will get you out of here.”

“Do you really promise?”

“I swear.”

Rachel paused for a moment to consider her words. “Okay.”

Selina gave her a bittersweet smile. “Okay, now head on back to your room. Stay strong.”

As the young girl quietly climbed the stairs back to her room, Selina looked for a way out. At the top of the steps, the girl paused, sensing Selina’s hesitation and turned back to face her. “The back door is usually unguarded. Not that they ever let us near it in the first place. They needed it to be up to fire codes, but it’s got at least 3 locks on it, so good luck.”

“Thanks, kid,” was the whispered response from the shadows as Selina made her way to the back door and out into the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First off, if the math is right, this chapter places Rachel at the age of 19 in the prologue. For a while, I’m going to stick to her having a younger age, but making her 19 in the first chapter gives me as the author time to develop her and Robin’s feelings (though not always romantic or even positive feelings) towards each other over the span of several years.
> 
> Second off, I have a bit of a rant. I’ve been getting a lot of comments (mostly on FFN) asking if I could “please not go with this overused story idea.” Someone said “If you’re gonna make your character Robin’s love interest, don’t make her related to Catwoman, or if you’re gonna make her related to Catwoman, don’t make her Robin’s love interest” and other comments along those lines. I won’t use names, though. To all of those comments, I say, “Please back off.”
> 
> This is a classic case of “Don’t like, don’t read.” No one is FORCING you to read this story. And besides, I’ve already pretty much gutted the plot to rewrite the whole thing for the sake of better characterization, better character development, better writing in general. Let me keep SOME aspects of my original story.
> 
> Please don’t misunderstand. Usually, I love receiving reviews, and I will absolutely take any CONSTRUCTIVE criticism you guys have. But when you’re just straight up telling me not to write what I want to write, that’s when it stops being constructive.
> 
> As I’ve said, if you REALLY have a problem with the direction in which I want to take the story, then don’t read it. I will gladly sacrifice views on this story if it means you guys are reading things that you’ll actually like. Or by all means, write your own story. Go at your own pace, and don’t worry if you think you’re not good at writing. You’ll only get better with time. The best example of that would probably be the fact that 5 years after I started this story, I’m finally getting around to rewriting it for real. You will get better, but only if you practice.
> 
> TL;DR: I’m sorry if this story isn’t what you wanted, but I’m not sorry for what I write. I know where I want to go with this story, and in the wise words of a 16-month-old clone of Superman, “Get on board, or get out of the way.”


	3. Beginnings Pt. 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More Background!!!!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry for ranting at you guys in the chapter notes on the last chapter. Believe me, I know what I want to do with this story. I have a lot of ideas, and I really want you guys to like this story, but I won't force you to like it so long as you don't force me to change my vision for this story. This story is my baby, I've been working on these ideas since I was 13. I'm still working on them, trying to make them better and trying to make a believable story...or about as believable as you can get for a story about fictional characters, many of whom have superpowers.
> 
> I don’t own Young Justice or any of its characters or DC Comics and their characters. I only own my character, Rachel. Any resemblance my character makes to anyone, real or not, is purely coincidental.

Rachel would remain in Sprang Hall for quite some time after that fateful encounter, but life for her or any of the other girls housed there certainly wasn’t easy.

It was about as hard as the ceramic tile floors she would be shoved down onto in the bathrooms, and about as hard as the drywall she would be pinned against in the hallways, almost always by older, bigger girls. Granted, she wasn’t the only one receiving this kind of torment, but really, fights and violent encounters weren’t uncommon within the walls of Sprang Hall. Being one of the youngest, smallest residents, there wasn’t much Rachel could do to defend herself. She did however learn to look for the best ways to get out of another girl’s hold on her. Being small certainly has some advantages, like being able to hide easily or slip through small spaces to escape.

Not all of the older girls were intent on being bullies, though. There were some, just a handful, that would shield younger girls from confrontations and help mend any cuts or bruises. Thankfully for everyone involved, fights never amounted in much more than that in terms of injury. They certainly saw Rachel a handful of times after she started to actually look for fights. She was 9 at the time.

“Why do you always try to get yourself into trouble?” she was asked once as a girl by the name of Melanie was patching up a few bite marks on Rachel’s arm.

“I wanna study their technique,” she said with a shrug. “I’m a rather quick learner, and I wanna learn to fight back.”

“They have no technique. Just thrash and try to land a hit.”

“Eh, some girls have patterns. A few of them clench their jaws right before they throw a punch. Some of them, you can see their muscles tense as they’re about to move. Kelly knows she towers over some of the younger girls, but when she goes against girls her own size, she cracks her neck to try and look scarier. Hannah with the blond hair fakes a punch with her left hand, and when younger girls flinch and cover themselves, she uses her right arm to grab them around the neck. Julia with the red hair–”

“I get it. How do you manage to remember who does what in which fights?”

“It just sticks in my head, I can’t help it.”

“And you’ve managed to observe all this while girls like Olivia have their teeth an inch deep in your arm?”

“No, I hide and watch them.” She winced as Melanie dabbed some rubbing alcohol on a cut.

“You watch them? That’s creepy,” Melanie chuckled.

“Not like that!” Rachel protested, prompting more laughs from the other girl. “I study the way they fight. I wanna learn how to fight back. And believe me, if I wasn’t studying this kind of stuff, you’d be patching up a lot more than a few bite marks right now.”

“Well thank you for making my job easier,” Melanie said with a smile. She patched up the last cut and slid off the bed, placing a small kiss on Rachel’s forehead before walking off.

Rachel watched the older girl walk away with a slight blush across her cheeks.

Studying paid off. The fights that Rachel involved herself in got shorter and shorter as she was able to remember how they attacked and dodge accordingly. But her streak couldn’t last forever. Soon, whole groups of girls, all frustrated with not being able to land more than a few hits in their fights with Rachel, started to gang up on her to get their revenge.

She was sleeping off a particularly bad beating in Melanie’s bed while the older girl kept watch when one of Melanie’s friendlier roommates came running in. “Miss Agnes is looking for you two. She knows you weren’t at dinner.” The words “Miss Agnes” were enough to wake Rachel in time for Melanie to drag her to the laundry room and practically toss her into an empty laundry cart.

“Stay here until I come get you. It will be a while. Don’t make a sound. Just…go back to sleep.” Melanie tossed stacks of warm, freshly washed towels on top of Rachel’s tired body. She tried to stay awake as she heard Melanie run off, turning off the lights as she went. The sound of clacking heels passed the darkened laundry room as the warm darkness surrounding Rachel permeated her mind and she fell asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We'll get into actual plot soon enough, I just need to get exposition over with. In the meantime, I'm sorry for the short chapters. Thank you for sticking with me.
> 
> Thank you all for reading. I hope you are enjoying the story. Please feel free to leave


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